The Heritage Lodge
No. 730, A.F. & A.M., G.R.C
Instituted: September 21, 1977
Constituted: September 23, 1978
PROCEEDINGS
Vol. 16, 1992-1993
Worshipful Master:
W.Bro. Stephen Maizels
Editor:
W.Bro. John F. Sutherland
20 Fairview Cr.
Woodstock, Ont., Canada
N4S 6L1
(519) 537-2927
W. BRO. STEPHEN MAIZELS
Masonic C.V.
Initiated into Masonry in Universal Brotherhood Lodge No. 5785
(E.C.) at Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen St. London. 1967
Affiliated Palestine No. 559, 1972
Master of Palestine Lodge 1 983/4 Installed by own Father
Life member and former Scribe E. of Mt. Sinai Royal Arch Chapter.
4 years secretary of Grey Lodge, No. 589
Life charter member Chiguacousy Lodge, Brampton
Member of Toronto Lodge of Perfection, Toronto Chapter of the Rose
Croix and Moore Sovereign Consistory, Ancient and Accepted Scottish
Rite. Plays lead role in 23rd degree for Barrie Consistory.
Worshipful Master of the Heritage Lodge No. 730 1992/93
Subscribing Member of many research Lodges internationally.
Secretary of the Black Creek Masonic Lodge
Masonic Writer and book seller
District education Chairman, Toronto District 7, 1985/86 and 1992
Guest speaker at many Lodges and Chapters
THE HERITAGE LODGE PROCEEDINGS
Page No. 1
EDITORIAL COMMENTS
It is the policy of The Heritage Lodge to hold the September
Meeting at the Hespler Masonic Temple. In deference to the wishes of
Consecon Lodge #50 and some past Masters of The Heritage Lodge,
the first paper for this proceedings was presented at Consecon Masonic
Temple. In retrospect it was a very timely decision. The Author and
speaker for the evening, Bro. "Scotty" Broughton, passed away later
that year.
The contents of Bro. Broughton 's speech and the emotion of it's
delivery, not only showed a Love for his Homeland and Robby Bums,
but also for Freemasonry and it's membership througliout the globe.
Wor. Bro. Stephen Maizels was installed at the Hespler Masonic
Temple on November 18, by V.W.Bro. Alan D. Hogg.
The Amiual Heritage Lodge Banquet was held at the St. Lawrence
Hall, Toronto, January 28, 1993. The Menu and speeches were a
duplication of tlie Banquet held on December 27, 1892, at Webb's
Tavern, which celebrated 100 years of Freemasonry in Ontario. 200
years of Freemasonry in Ontario have now passed and we are still
going strong, as we appreciate our past and look forward to the future.
The March meeting was held at 888 Younge St., Toronto. V.W.
Bro. Storey once again presented a well prepared talk, this time on "A
Histoiy of Irish Freemasoruy and the Old Guilds''.
The final paper for this proceedings was also presented at 888
Younge St. Toronto. A rare occurrence took place as a non Mason, Mr.
Carl Benn, spoke. Mr. Benn is the Curator of Fort York and was
extremely well versed in his topic, ''Masonic Presence in Fort York".
We were quite delighted to have a non Mason deliver such a well
researched look at our Bretliren of the past, in Toronto.
John F. Sutherland
Woodstock Ont.
Page No. 2 THE HERITAGE LODGE PROCEEDINGS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Subject Page
The Worshipful Master 1
Editorial Comments 2
Table of Contents 3
Disclaimer 3
Robert Bums - Poet Laureate of Scotland
and Freemasonry 4
Annual Heritage Lodge Banquet 18
A History of hish Freemasonry and the Old Gilds 23
Review #1 by W.Bro. Sydney Grant 39
Comments on Review by John Storey 41
Review #2 by W.Bro. Norman Pearson 43
Two Freemasons of Two Hundred Years Ago:
John Graves Simcoe and Joseph Brant 46
Our Departed Brethren 56
Lodge Officers & committees 58
Application for Affiliation 61
Application for Corresponding Subscriber 63
DISCLAIMER
The contributors to these Proceedings are alone responsible for the
opinions expressed and also for the accuracy of the statements made
therein, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of The
Heritage Lodge.
THE HERITAGE LODGE PROCEEDINGS Page No. 3
ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796)
Poet Laureate of Scotland
and Freemasonry
by
Bro. J.W.D. Broughton. CM.
September 1 6th 1 992
CONSECON LODGE #50
Consecon Masonic Temple
Consecon, Ontario
It is an honour to address this distinguished group of Freemasons,
on the life and work of Scotland's beloved son.
Bom within the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, it is not strange, that
there should be rooted within me a love for the land which gave me
birth, its songs, history, progress, its great men, scholars and tlie part
they have played in the advancement of civilization.
That little rugged land being the Northern part of Great Britain,
has a population of less than five million at home and countless
millions abroad. To some it is remarkable that the Scottish race should
have advanced so far in education and morality. Throughout history,
education has been the crowning glory of Scotland. Thanks to John
Knox who advocated a school in every parish.
It is worth noting tliat when a Scotsman goes abroad he becomes
an absolute fixture in his adopted land, while he still has fond mem-
ories of his native land. It is a dramatic truth that a Scotsman, above all
otliers, has the faculty of combining two cultures, that of his native land
without in the slightest detracting from the loyalty he owes to his new
home.
Robert Bums, was the first bom to William Bunies and Agnes
Broun. He had tliree older brothers, Gilbert, William and John and
three sisters, Agnes, Anabel and Isabel. The home was a clay briggin
Page No. 4 ROBERT BURNS
built by William Bumes himself. Ten days after Robert was bom, a
storm caused considerable damage to the home and the baby Robert
had to be taken to a neighbour's home while the damage to the cottage
was repaired.
By modem standards Robert Bums sporadic schooling was poor
indeed, but Robert made more than ordinary use of such guidance that
came his way. The function of his teachers, Murdock, Campell and
Rodgers were little more than sign posts pointing the intellectual roads
for him to follow.
Campell's instmction could hardly have amounted to much,
though it is to him, that the credit goes for- making a beginning.
Murdock opened up for Robert the stately portals of English literature
and put him in the way of reading Shakespeare, Pope, Addison,
Richardson and many lesser writers of the day. To Murdock was due
Robert's knowledge of French and indirectly his smattering of Latin.
Rodgers gave him a grounding in mathematics, which was to stand him
good in his excise days.
From his father he gained some knowledge of history, geography,
philosophy and theology. From his mother and old Betty Davidson, the
foundation upon which he built his study of Scottish Folk Song. He
was thus in no sense an unlettered ploughman.
Before arriving at manhood Bums was firmly grounded in the
Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. While still a teenager
he had witnessed a Masonic Funeral Rite, a ceremony he never forgot,
hi beautiful Tarbolton there was a Masonic Lodge St. David's No. 1 74,
whose membership consisted of honest and upright gentlemen of the
neighbourhood.
We have today many distinguished men who are members of the
craft, whom we never meet in the lodgeroom. It is interesting to note
that the distinguished men of Bums day were in constant attendance.
Freemasonry influenced the thoughts of Robert Bums, inspired his
work, and nurtured that stem love of independence and brotherhood.
With very few exceptions his fi"iends and patrons were members of the
brotherhood.
ROBERT BURNS Page No. 5
Bums approached his friend, Jolin Raiikine and said; "I was
thinking of joining the Masons, would you put my name forward?"
RepHed John Rankine, "It will be a great day when I see you through
your Master Masons degree". Bums said "1 have no desire to join the
Masons for the mystery of it." Johji Rankine replied, "the greatest mys-
tery about Freemasonry is, there is no mystery to it."
St. David's Lodge
In the darkness there were many strange voices and many strange
words were spoken. When the light was restored to his eyes. Bums was
aware of the glittering points against his flesh, the flasliing downward
thmst of the blade and the steel seemed to flash and flicker in the light
cast from the tallow tapers.
Robin was afraid and trembled, but a hand was stretched out from
behind and Robin knew it was hand of a friend and it caressed his
damp head. From that hand flowed a sense of protection, love and
strength, he knew it was the hand of a friend. Then came the sound of
a voice whispering courage and bidding him have no fear. He knew the
hand and voice were John Rankine 's. He ceased to tremble and was
conscious of the dampness seeping through his flesh from the damp-
ness of the earthen floor.
The labour of the lodge having passed, Robin was relieved when
refreshments were brought in and normal good fellowship prevailed.
John Rankine passed him a glass of Manson's strong ale and bade him
drink up.
"Get that down into you, you're bound to have a grey empty
feeling there. I know laddie, I know, all come through the same gate.
ItTl come back to you and whatever you've gathered you'll put
something to it yourself. Something you'll maybe give back to the
brethren here, years afterwards. You're on the road now and Robin lad,
you did well. Keep your head high, you've nothing to be ashamed of."
Bums became extremely interested in his new fratemal home. The
lessons he learned therein had a very special place in his heart. In a
short time he wished for more light in Masonry by being made a Royal
Arch Mason. In due season he made application for further advan-
Page No. 6 ROBERT BURNS
cement in die ancient mysteries of that institution.
It is by the aid of an old record book of St. Abbs Lodge Leymouth
dated May 19, 1787 tliat reads; "that the following brethren were made
Royal Arch Masons. Robert Bums, St. James Lodge, Tarboulton.
Ayshire Robert Ainslie, St. Luke's Lodge, Edinburgh, who paid one
guinea admission." On account of Robert Burns remarkable, practical
genius the chapter agreed to admit him free and considered themselves
honoured by having such a man of such shining abilities for one of
tlieir companions.
Robert Bums was elected Deputy Master of St. David's Lodge
and sat in the East for the first time June 29th, 1785, an office he held
for three years during wliich time he presided over 29 meetings. The
Lodge met at the Cross Trees Tavem operated by James Manson.
Bums was a member of Lodge 5 1 whose Master was Major William
Parker. Bums wrote these words to a Masonic song.
Ye sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie,
to Follow the noble vocation;
Your thrifty old mother has such another
To sit in that honoured station.
I've little to say, but only to pray,
As praying is the ton of your fashion;
A prayer from the muse you well may excuse,
Tis seldom her favourite passion.
Ye powers who preside O'er the wind and the tide
Who marked each elements border;
Who formed tliis frame wi' magnificent aim.
Whose soverign statue is order.
Within this dear mansion, may wayward contention
or withered envy never enter;
May secrecy round be the mystical bound.
and Brotherly Love the centre.
On January 13, 1787 Bums attended St. Andrew's Lodge,
Edinburgh, where the Grand Master proposed a toast to Caledonia and
ROBERT BURNS Page No. 7
Caledonia's bard, Bro. Robert Bums.
Two weeks later Bums was honoured with membership in the
Canongate Kilwining Lodge No. 2. This Lodge is one of the few that
does not produce a Warrant or Charter of constitution from the Grand
Lodge of Scotland. On March 1, 1787 Brother Ferguson of Craig
Darroch conferred on Bums the title of Poet Laureate of Freemasons
and crowned him with a wreath of laurel.
The collection of dues was a problem in those days as it is today.
Bums wrote this letter to the lodge.
Dear Sir and Brother,
I am sorry that it is not in my power to be with you at your
quarterly meeting. If I am absent in body, I shall be with you in Spirit.
I suppose those who owe us money by bills or otherwise will appear.
I mean those whom we summoned. If you please, I wish you would
delay prosecution defaulters till I come home. The court is up and I
shall be home before it sits again. In the meantime take note of those
who did appear and those who did not, of faulty defaulters, will be in
my opinion right and those who confess debt and crave days, we should
spare them.
R. Bums
This letter is preserved in a glass case and is carried by the
youngest at the lodge functions and processions.
Prior to the publishing of his poems, Bums considered migrating
to Jamaica and wrote a farewell to St. James Lodge.
Adieu, a warm hearty Adieu
Dear brethren of the mystic tie'
Ye favoured, ye enlightened few,
Companions of my social joy.
Tho I to Foreign lands must fly.
Pursuing fortune's slippery ba'
Wi mehing heart and brimfiil eye,
I'll mind ye still tho far awa'.
Oft have I met your social band
and spent the cheerfu' festive night,
Page No. 8 ROBERT BURNS
Oft honoured wi ' supreme command,
Presided o'er the sons of Hght.
And by the hieroglyphic bright
which none by craftsmen ever saw
Strong memory o'er my heart shall write
Those happy scenes when far awa'.
May freedom, harmony and love
Unite, far in the grand design
Beneath the omniscient eye above
The glorious architect divine.
At the yearly meeting nearest the 25th of January, this poem is
sung or recited by the oldest member present. It is a duty never
omitted.
The attendance on St.John's Day at St. David's Lodge was large
and a more proud Mason never stood proudly wearing his Master
Mason apron than Robert Burns as he extended the hand of ft^atemal
friendship and brotherhood upon that occasion.
Bums was plainly but proudly dressed, in a style midway between
the holiday costume of a farmer and that of a company with which he
associated. In no part of his manner was there the slightest degree of
affection. In conversation he was powerful, his conceptions and
expression were of corresponding vigour and on all subjects were as
remote as possible fi*om commonplace.
Though I am far from meaning to compare our rustic bard to
Shakespeare, I will read his lighter, more humorous poems and
perceive that this Heaven Taught ploughman from his humble and
unlettered station has looked upon man and manners.
Even in Scotland the provincial dialect which Ramsay and Bums
both used, is now read with difficulty which greatly dampens the
pleasure of tlie reader In English, it cannot be read at all without
constant references to a glossary, which lessens the pleasure.
Many English scholars could not distinguish between English neo-
ROBERT BURNS Page No. 9
classic falseness and genuine Scots homespun. They did not have
enough skill to renovate and preserve without Anglifing or otherwise
weakening the rude force of ancient originals. Burns came on the
Scottish scene at a time when Scottish songs had fallen into a danger-
ous decline, when such Anglified, willy nillys were being preferred by
a London, conscious gentry and the vernacular was becoming a vulgar
handicap.
For perhaps tliree generations Scotland had industriously built up
her productivity of soil, her trade, here intellectual riches, but as a
nation she had neither leaders or any particular loyalties. She found her
champion this time in neither kirk or court but in a ploughman poet,
Robert Bums.
He never knew it except fleetingly as poets do in moments of
creation. He lead no movements. His was the voice of labourishly
enriched earth asserting again the liberty of which it had so long been
impoverished. By his favour the re-established consciousness of the
ancient border of tweed and Cheviot.
Bums was heir to dozens of folk-poets, grave and gay, whose
traditions he bent to the mould of his own genius. Bums wrote or
revised, in such a mamier, as to give him claim to authorship of nearly
370 songs. All of them designed for particular airs. The rhytlimic
variety of the measures he employs, shows the skill with which he
matches the mood to the tempo of the air. Words and music should
always be considered together, and the wide emotional range his songs
embrace, are quite remarkable, hi studying Bums we are scarcely able
to believe that any single man could have accomplished so much.
As a poet, Bums stands in the front rank, his conceptions are all
original, his thoughts, new and weighty, his style unborrowed, and he
owes no honour to the subjects which his muse selected; for they are
ordinary such as would have tempted no poet save himself to sing
about.
All he has written is distinguished by a happy carelessness
familiar yet dignified. He sheds a redeeming light on all he touches or
whatever his eye glances on rises into life and beauty. He owes nothing
to the poetry of other lands. He is that offspring of the soil, he is as
Page No. 10 ROBERT BURNS
natural to Scotland as tlie heather to her hills.
His variety is equal to his originality, his humour, his gaiety, his
tenderness, his pathos, come all in a breath, they come freely, for they
are of their own accord, tlie contrast is never offensive the comic slides
easily into the serious, the serious into the tender, the tender into the
patlios. Bums was in truth, die child of passion and feeling.
Tlie excellence of Bums is among the rarest whether in poetry or
prose, but at the same time, it is plain and easily recognized. His
sincerity had an indisputable air of tmth.
He does not write from heresay, but from sight and experience. It
is the scenes he has lived and laboured amidst, that he describes. These
scenes mde and humble, as they are, have kindled beautiful emotions
in his soul. He speaks forth what is in him, not from any outward call
or interest, but because his heart is too full to be silent.
He speaks with much melody and modulation as he can. It is his
own and genuine. There is a secret for finding readers and retaining
them. Those who would move and convince others, be first moved and
convince himself. To every poet to every writer, we miglit say, be tme
if you would be believed.
Let a man speak with genuine eamestness, the thought, the
emotion, tlie actual condition of his own heart. Other men so strangely,
we are all knit together by the tie of sympathy, must and will give heed
to him.
Henry Mackenzie in "The Lounger" of December 1786 wrote: "I
know not if I shall be accused of enthusiasm and partiality when I
introduce to the readers a poet of our own country, with whose
writings, I have lately become acquainted; but if I am not greatly
deceived. I think I may safely pronounce him a genius of no ordinary
rank. The person to whom I allude is Robert Bums an Ayrshire
ploughman."
"In mentioning the circumstances of his humble station, I mean
not to rest his pretensions solely on that title or to urge the merits of his
poetry when considered in relation to the lowness of his birth, and the
ROBERT BURNS Page No. 1 1
little opportunity which his education could afford."
"These particulars might, indeed, excite our wonder at his produc-
tions, but his poetry considered in the abstract and without apologies
arising from his situation seems to me fully entitled to command our
feelings and to obtain our applause."
Dr Currie, one of the first biographers of Robert Bums was a
teetotaller and rabid opponent of drinking. He wrote that Bums was
dying of alcoholism. Although it was denied by the doctor who
attended Bums at his death. Speaker after speaker, especially those
against the sale of liquor have continued the scandal started by Dr
Currie.
It cannot be denied that Freemasonry has its birth in taverns.
Many toasts were drunk. You can be certain that grape juice was not
the beverage used, until the abolitionists convinced Masonry that
temperance meant abstinence, spirits were a goodly part of the after
lodge dinners. The ancient brethren did not meet in consecrated lodge
rooms or churches but in taverns or large public halls.
Books about the life of Bums provoked in the first instance by the
libel of Dr. James Currie have proliferated all over the world.
"There Was A Lad", by Hilton Brown, was published 1949 and
concluded with these words.
"Small wonder that Bums story has intrigued, not only his
countrymen, but a greater part of mankind, so that an American, could
say with whatever hyperbole, that his name has been dearer to a greater
number of hearts than any other save that of Jesus Christ and a Chinese
could fmd his revealing, Our Common Humanity and a Canadian could
write that he made the world his lover."
He was a great poet who sprang from the people, who was heart
and soul a Scot, in his feelings his inspiration and in his errors and
prejudices. It was not ice water that flowed in his veins but the red hot
blood of love. He loved dearly his native land, he also loved the lassies.
All men possess some real worth, there is a spark of divine in all
Page No. 12 ROBERT BURNS
of us. But Robert Burns was a genius and genius is a gift from God.
Whatever value may be attached to Bums, writing verse or prose,
whatever blame he may have earned by his faults and failings, it is
surely a poor heart tliat will not take fire at the warm blaze of his and
subscribe to the conclusion -- THERE WAS A GREAT MAN.
His motions were firm and decided and though without any
pretensions to race, were at the same time so free from clownish
restraint, as to show that he had not always been confined to the society
of his profession.
His countenance was not that of the elegant caste wliich is most
frequent among the upper ranks, but it was manly and intelligent and
marked by a tlioughtfiil gravity which shaded at times into sternness.
In his large dark eyes the most striking index of his genius
resided. It was ftill of mind and would have been singularly expressive
under the management of one who could employ it with more art, for
the purpose of expression.
In no sense did he revive the old enmity against England, his
achievement is to his own people, a challenge to retain their identity
and character and to assert themselves before their qualities become
merged and lost.
His patriotism is the reverse of Jingoism; it stirs the hearts of all
men. He preaches the brotherhood of man, but a brotherhood which can
be best attained by men whose roots are deep in the earth from which
they sprang. That is why his appeal is universal today. Even in Russia
and China and other countries outside the stream of Western thought
his importance to this or any other age is so much greater than the sum
of the intellectuals of tlie golden age.
Burns the Prophet
On New Years day 1795 Bums wrote a poem in which the bottom
line expresses the ideal of Freemasonry. A French poet Pierre Jean
Baragner declared this poem "A man's a man for a' that" is not a poem
for our age, but all etemity.
ROBERT BURNS Page No. 13
Is there for honest poverty
That hangs its head and a' that
The coward slave we pass him by,
We dare be poor for A' that.
For a' that and a' that
Our toils obscure and a' that
The rank is but the guinea stamp
The man's the gold for a' that
What tho on hamely fare we dine
Wear hodden gray and a' that
Gie fools their silks and knaves their wine
A man's a man for a' that
For a' that and a' that
Their tinsel show and a' that
Tlie honest man tho hae sae poor
Is king of men for a' that
Ye see yon birkie called a Lord
Who struts and stares and a' that
Tho hundreds worship at his word
He's but a coof for a' that
For a' that and a' that
His ribbon star and a' that
The man of independent mind
He looks and laughs at a' that
A prince cam make a belted knight
A marquis, duke and a' that
But an honest man's aboon his might
Guid faith he mauna hae for a' that
For a' that and a' that
The dignities and a' that
The pith of sense and the pride of worth
Are higher rank than a' that
Page No. 14 ROBERT BURNS
Then let us prey, that come it may
As come it will for a' that
Tliat sense and wortli o'er all the eartli
Shall bear agree and a' tliat
For a' diat and a' that
Its coming yet, for a' that
That man to man the whole world o'er
Will brothers be for a' that
Bums wrote those words more than 200 years ago. They are today
enshrined in the Canadian Bill of Rights put there by a grandson of a
Scottish grandson Bro. tlie Rt. Hon. John Diefenbaker; - This nation
Canada is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of
God, the dignity of men and free institutions.
No poet has ever appeared witli greater emotional appeal than
Robert Bums. He wrote much that he would not be recommended for
the curriculum of Bishop Strachan School for girls, in Toronto. He
drank more than the temperance Union would approve. Some of his
affairs were unconventional to say the least, yet, his memory is
honoured above that of any king or statesman.
More toasts are drunk to his memory than that of any poet, either
ancient or modem. Robert Bmce emancipated a nation but it was Bums
that emancipated man. The day has arrived when Bums the proclaimer
of the royalty of man stands revealed to us, as the prophet of his age.
What he proclaimed proved to be the needed gospel for the advan-
cement of man, especially in the English speaking world. The dreams
of a poor Scottish peasant has become the trumpet call of civilization.
Instead of preachers talking about the wrath of God and the fires
of hell, they would be preaching a God of love. A god who can be
tmsted to deal merciful with the sinner. In these changes we recognize
the work of Robert Bums.
Bums was a tme believer in the Christian faith. In a letter to
Clarinda, he wrote;
"He who is our author and preserver, and one day will be our
ROBERT BURNS Page No. 15
judge. Must be, not for his sake in the way of duty but from the native
impulse of our hearts - the object of our reverence awe and grateful
adoration."
"He is Almighty and Bounteous, we are weak and dependent,
hence prayer and every other sort of devotion. He is not willing that
any should perish, but that all should come to everlasting life. Conse-
quently, it must be in everyone's power to embrace this offer of etemal
life - otherwise it could not injustice condemn those who did not."
"A mind pervaded, actuated and governed by truth and charity,
though it does not merit Heaven, yet it is absolutely requisite, without
which Heaven can neither be obtained or enjoyed. And by divine
promise such a mind shall never fail of attaining etemal life, hence the
impure, the deceiving, the uncharitable, exclude themselves from
Etemal bliss by their unfitness for enjoying it. These are my tenets.
Lord Grant that we may lead a good life here make a good end."
If only he could look down on this assembly tonight. He would
see the principles of Masonry covering the globe wherever men
assemble. He would see the sons of his beloved Scotland scattered to
the four comers of the earth covering themselves with conspicuous
gallantry in battle, leaders in the fields of education, government,
church, industry and literature.
The nation which reads Bums in the nursery can never have
tyrants in the House of Parliament.
There is a star whose beaming ray
Is shed on every clime
It shines by night, it shines by day
it rose upon the banks of Ayr
It shines on Doon's clear stream
A hundred years hae gone and mare
Still brighter glows its beam
Let kings and couriers rise and fall
the World has many turns
But brighter beams aboon them all Is the Star of Robbie Bums.
I would conclude this speech with three verses of the Cotters
Page No. 1 6 ROBERT BURNS
Saturday Night.
November chill blows loud wi angry sough
tlie shortening inter day is near a close
The miry beasts retreating from the plough
The blackening train of crows to their repose
The toil worn cotter from his labour goes
This night, his weekly toil is at an end
Collects his spade, his mattock and his hoe
Hoping the mom in ease and rest to spend
And weary o'er the moor, his course does homeward
bound.
The cherfu' supper done with
They round the ingle form a circle wide
The sire, turns o'er wi patriarchal grace
The big old bible, once his father's pride
He reverently lays his bomiet aside
His whiskers wearing thin and bare
Those strains which once sweet, in Zion glide
He wales a portion wi' judicious care.
And, Let us worship God he says, wi' solemn air
From scenes like these, old Scotland's grandeur springs
That makes her loved at home and revered abroad
Princes and Lords are but the breath of kings An honest man's tlie
noblest work of God,
What is a Lording pomp, a cumbrous wretch
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind
Studied in arts of Hell and wickedness refmed
O Scotland, my dear, my native soil
For whom my warmest wish to Heave is sent.
Long may thy sons of rustic toil
Be blest wi' health and peace and sweet content
ROBERT BURNS Page No. 17
HERITAGE LODGE BANQUET
A BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF
MASONRY
IN ONTARIO
January 28th 1993
St. Lawrence Hall, Toronto
A CENTURY OF CRAFT HISTORY
{Extracted from the archives of the Craft by M. W.
Bro. J.R. Robertson. Toronto, 27th December, 1892)
The first Knowledge of Masonry in Upper Canada is of a Lodge
which was attached to the 8th Regiment of Foot, quartered at Niagara,
in 1775, and first recorded in a certificate, dated 1780. The first
Provincial Grand Lodge was founded at Newark (Niagara) by William
Jarvis, in 1792, by a warrant from the Athol Grand Lodge of England.
The Provincial Grand Lodge was removed to York (Toronto) in 1797.
The second Provincial Grand Lodge was opened at York in 1822, under
R.W. Bro. Simon McGillivray, RG.M., from 1822 to 1826, with R.W.
Bro. James Fitzgibbon as D.P.G.M.. In 1826 Bro. Fitzgibbon resigned
and R.W. Bro. John Beikie was appointed D.P.G.M., and acted as such
from 1826 until 1830, when the P.G.L. became dormant. The Provin-
cial Grand Lodge was revived in 1845 with Sir Allan Napier McNab
as P.G.M., appointed by the Grand Master the G.L. of England, R.W.
Bro. T.G. Ridout being D.RG.M. In 1855 The Grand Lodge of Canada
was formed, and in 1 858 the Provincial Grand Lodge of England, under
R.W. Bros. McNab and Ridout, united with the Grand Lodge of
Canada, with M.W. Bro. William Mercer Wilson as Grand Master,
1855-1859 .... The records for 1892 show 347 Lodges, divided into 18
districts, and a membership of 21,428. On the 27th of December, 1792
- one hundred years ago to-night - the Festival of St. John, the
Evangelist, was celebrated in the barracks at Niagara, with R.W. Bro.
William Jarvis, the Provincial Grand Master in the chair.
Page No. 18 CENTURY OF CRAFT HISTORY
HONOURING THE PAST
CRAFTING THE FUTURE
1792 - 1992
One hiuidred years ago, on December 27, 1892, M.W. Bro. Jolin
Ross Robertson, tlie immediate Past Grand Master, was determined to
tlirough a banquet to celebrate the first hundred years since the
formation of the First Provincial Grand Lodge under the Grand Master
R.W. Bro. William Jarvis.
M.W. Bro. Robertson, who was an avid historian, could not miss
tlie additional opportunity of associating the event with the first
settlement of "York", as Jolin Graves Simcoe named Toronto, when he
and his wife Elizabeth arrived in August of 1 795.
The event was organized as a Toronto Masonic function without
a great deal of initial enthusiasm from Grand Lodge. Perhaps our very
young Grand Lodge was still sensitive about the predecessor Grand
Lodge which had it's fair share of problems, as anybody who has read
our various histories will have learned.
Never-the-less, the committee list of the original programme
demonstrates how M.W. Bro. Robertson, a man of enormous drive and
influence, was able to assemble the cream of Ontario Masonry to
celebrate with him. The event was staged at Webb's Restaurant at 447
Yonge St. near Carlton St. Webb had been in business since 1876 and
appears to have had a fine reputation. The menu that was presented
certainly illustrates a flair for the exotic. The price of a ticket for the
banquet was two dollars, a tidy sum in those days.
The events of the evening were published in full in the Toronto
Evening Telegram. M.W. Bro. Robertson was the publisher. The
proceedings were also published in full in the Freemason magazine and
the Canadian Craftsman. We are indeed fortunate that copies survived
and we were able to use them as a basis for the Historical Presentation
one hundred years later.
Following the Banquet, M.W. Bro. Robertson created a "time
capsule" which he presented on January 13, 1893, to the Toronto Public
Library. The envelope was inscribed with the instructions "~ to be
CENTURY OF CRAFT HISTORY Page No. 19
opened by the Grand Master or the Deputy Grand Master for Toronto -
December 27, 1992." On January 13, 1993, our Grand Master, M.W.
Bro. Norman E. Byrne accompanied by the Deputy Grand Master,
R.W. Bro. C. Edwin Drew attended at the Toronto Library Board and
unsealed tliat time capsule.
CONTENTS of the TIME CAPSULE
OPENED by our GRAND MASTER
M. W. Bro. Norman E. Byrne
Januaiy n. 1993
Invitation to 1892 Banquet
Programme which J. Ross Robertson
said the Masons would want as a souvenir
(The only one that survived was in capsule)
Newspaper clipping report of the
1 892 church service
held on Sunday December 18,1892
Verbatim newspaper clipping report
of the 1892 Banquet
(Eight Columns and 17,500 words)
Freemason, December 1 892, twelfth year,
Containing the verbatim report of the banquet
(A reprint of this Freemason was given to each
Mason attending the Bicentennial banquet on
January 28, 1993)
J.Ross Robertson's signed statement
of the time capsule
(Reprint of that Signed statement,
on letterhead of The Evening Telegram.)
Toronto, 28th Dec, 1892
To the Grand Master
or D.D.G.M. of Masons
in Ontario.
The enclosed is die bill of fare and Toast list, with invitation card
Page No. 20 CENTURY OF CRAFT HISTORY
for banquet held on 27th Dec. 1892, to commemorate the Centennial
of Freemasonry in this Province - also printed account of religious
proceedings and sermon at Metropolitan Church on the 1 8th Dec. 1 892
- This package is made up and sent by me to the public library, to be
opened one hundred years from this date - at the celebration of the
Second Century Anniversary on 27th Dec, 1993.
J.Ross Robertson
Chairman at Banquet
Past Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge of Canada
It was mentioned from the contents of the time capsule, the
complete report of the banquet was some 17,500 words
Many of those toasts were edited by R.W. Bro. Wallace McLeod.
In representing M.W. Bro. Robertson, R.W. Bro. McLeod chaired the
entertainment portion of the evening. Those edited toasts were
presented by a number of bretliren in attendance.
One of the more interesting portions was the toast "to the Wives
and Daughters of the Craft".
"That women have some place in the minds of the Craft is
evidenced this evening by tlie fact that we open are proceedings with
drinking to the health of the Honoured mother of the greatest represen-
tative of Masonry in England, and then after three hours' of solid
enjoyment we throw a mantle of protection over the shoulders of the
married brethren by paying a compliment to the wives and daughters
of the Craft. To the first toast we all joined in singing 'God Save The
Queen' heartily, but for this last toast we are not done with the singing
yet: a good many of us will sing a different song and dance before the
dawn of the day, and perhaps the brethren who sing very loudly here,
will sing very softly in the duet later on. I know my voice will be
particularly low and sweet, because the wife of the Craft with whom I
have domiciled for the last quarter century is peculiar in asking proof
as to my whereabouts, and in insisting that I demonstrate that proof to
her by signs and unless I can procure a menu card and purloin a spoon
with Webb's name on it, I am liable to be brought into argument, and
1 am not always successftil in argument at home, principally because
this wife of the Craft is some ten or twelve years younger and about
twenty -five pounds heavier than I....
CENTURY OF CRAFT HISTORY Page No. 21
....I ackjiowledgc that the little good I have in me is attributed to
tliem, that by them every joy has been accentuated, every sorrow
softened, every pain diminished, and every noble thought encouraged.
And as it has been with me, so it has with others; and, knowing this, I
can say with all the honesty and fervency of my soul, though they were
the last words I uttered on eartli. God Bless the Wives and Daughters
of the Craft."
Page No. 22 CENTURY OF CRAFT HISTORY
A HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
AND THE OLD GUILDS AND A GLIMPSE
OF WHAT WE OWE TO THE IRISH
March 11th, 1993
888 Younge St., Toronto
A most distinguished Irish Freemason, the Puke of Leinster in the
last report he delivered as President of the Rose Croix Degree, on the
19th May, 1909, said: ''I am convinced that long before the transition
from Operative to Speculative Masonry, probably for centuries,
possibly even before the days of Solomon, the Craft existed as an
organized society of guilds."
THE IRISH GILD SYSTEM
It has been established that the gild system was known in Ireland
from ver>' remote times. Although we ourselves are inclined to seek a
religious origin for these associations practising brotherly love and
relief, that learned scholar W.H. Sullivan, Ph.D. and sometime
secretary to the Royal Irish Society, contends that the true origin of the
guilds in Ireland is to be sought in the Family. He contends that these
ancient guilds were artificial families, rural partnerships formed not so
much for the preservation of rights as for the securing of mutual pledge
and assistance, and were intended to supply the poorer members of the
community with the advantage of the true family. They were
sanctioned by the law, they formed an essential feature of the social
organization and they exerted considerable influence upon the State.
In the obscure period before Grand Lodge came into being, the
same phenomena cropped up in Ireland and in England, consisting of
scanty, tantalising references to masons, symbolisms and local lodges.
According to the History of the Grand Lodge of Ireland (Vol. 1 pg. 25)
"The English operative gild system was imported into the Irish pale and
seems to have flourished there" - — This could mean that wherever
there were English settlers a gild system may have existed which later
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 23
developed into masonic lodges. But more likely these were based on
the Irish "family gild" system which had been in existence for perhaps
centuries.
WHERE & WHEN DID IT ALL BEGIN
Masonic marks of very early date have been found scattered over
the Continent of Europe and the British Isles; for example, some which
cannot be later than 1210, were discovered on the ruins of Grey Abbey,
Co. Down. Similar marks were also found at Yonghal, in St. Mary's
Church and in the Dominican Friary, both of which were built in the
thirteenth century.
SOME IRISH HISTORY
Right through the Middle Ages (1000 to about 1400) the English
did their utmost to completely take over the country. It may have been
as a last resort that Henry VIII (1509-1547) tried to use the London
guilds to this end by ordering them to do something about keland.
Never the less, it seems that they had a lot to do with the "colonizing"
of the country. They have been charged with "occupying" it and doing
so only at the cost of subduing the people who were at the same time
having to cope with the influence of the Roman Catholic church with
its Papal domination.
The History of the Grand Lodge of Ireland (vol. 1 pg. 23-24)
states that "within the last four hundred years our conclusions must be
based on the facts as they are known to us. The earliest definite
evidence we got of masons being banded together for mutual objects
comes from districts that were mainly populated by English settlers and
their descendants, and the unavoidable inference is that the system was
an importation irom England."
And yet from very remote times Lodges and guilds of Masons
were brought over to Ulster from England and Scotland and were
engaged on specific work. They did not remain permanently, but
returned to their own country upon completion of their labours. Could
it be that perhaps some of their influence was left behind?
Page No. 24 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
THE GREAT IMMIGRATION
From 1610 onwards a great immigration into Northern Ireland of
new Settlers took place, principally from Scotland - known later as "the
Plantation of Ulster". The newcomers brought with them all the
characteristics of their race - their dialect, religion, habits, customs and
no doubt had a lot to do with the planting of the seeds of Freemasonry.
These "Planters" had of necessity to provide for themselves, their cattle,
etc., houses for the security of their persons and protection from the
climate - and for these purposes the Carpenters, Wrights and Masons
also came. Following the methods to which these Craftsmen were
accustomed in Scotland, Mason's Lodges were formed. However,
practically no early evidence of their existence has come down to us
(similar to the Minutes of "Mary's Chapel" Lodge, Edinburgh from
1599 or St. Clair Charters, No.l of 1600 and No.2 of 1628 particularly
in view of the devastation of Wars, the hand of time, etc.) About the
same time the Guilds of London gave appreciable sums of money as
well as supplied stores and equipment - 120 Masons along with other
workers were sent over from the London area to build houses, wharves,
etc. Towns were built and in so doing the seeds of prosperity were
sewn no doubt with the prospects of increased trade between Ireland
and England.
You will remember that old brass square found in a bridge in
Limerick (estimated about the middle of the 16th Century), on which
was inscribed: - "I will strive to live with love and care upon the level
and by the square." Showing that the esoteric teaching of the Craft,
both in England and in Ireland, was not confined to operative work.
How much deeper it went in the Higher Degrees we do not know, but
it is remarkable that Degrees like those of the Temple were conferred
in Craft Lodges in Ireland in those former days.
Recent researches among the manuscripts of Trinity College,
Dublin, have shown that Freemasonry of the speculative type was
known within the precincts of Dublin University before the Revolution
of 1688.
THE ANCIENTS & THE TEMPLARS
(QCC-VoL Vlll-Pg. 81) When the Grand Lodge of the Ancients
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 25
began its career the majority of its adiierents seem to have belonged to
the lower middle classes. The disparity in social conditions between
these worthy brethren and the Irish Law students who were studying at
the Middle Temple in 1754 perhaps will explain why these "Templars"
as they called themselves sought and obtained a Warrant from the
Grand Lodge of Dublin. The Irish Work was so different fi-om the ritual
developed by the Grand Lodge of the Modems that these Irish students
could hardly be expected to "work" under any banner other than their
own Home Grand Lodge.
Thus was formed Lodge No. 247 under the Grand Lodge of h-eland
held in the Middle TEMPLE, London, which met at the King's Head,
Comer of Chancery Lane. 8th May 1754 (page 140) The Original
Founders of the Grand Lodge of the Ancients were chiefly Irislimen,
and the most prominent of them all was an Irish Brother Laurence
Dermott. This Brother was a joumeyman painter by trade in Dublin,
where he was initiated under the Irish Grand Lodge in 1 740, and where
he was installed Master in 1746 in the Dublin Lodge No.26. He
afterwards went to London and was a leading spirit in founding the
Grand Lodge of the Ancients, which was always united in the closest
bonds to the Irish Fratemity, and rigorously held the teaching and
practice the ritual of the Grand Lodge of Ireland.
(Pg. 1390 The Grand Lodge of Ireland) though so styled, either
did not then claim, or was not then acknowledged to have jurisdiction
in the South of Ireland, as a Grand Lodge of Munster was established
in 1726. This latter Grand Lodge was, however, merged in the Grand
Lodge of Ireland in 1 73 1 . The first warrant granted by the Grand Lodge
of Ireland was accepted by a well known Munster Lodge which had
previously existed, and is still No.l in the list of the Irish Lodges.
The North of Ireland now (1913) contains about half the entire
number of our Irish Brethren, and has invariably worked in harmony
with Dublin and the South.
THE POPULARITY OF IRISH WARRANTS
It is well apparent that the World of Freemasonry owes much to
the Irish. It is not unlikely that the very oldest Warrant in the world.
No. 1 which was granted for Mitchelstown on 1st Feb 1731/2, was
intended to be used in the household of the then Grand Master, Lord
Page No. 26 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
Kingston, whose chief estates sat in the neighbourhood of that
insignificant town in Co. Cork.
hish Warrants were most popular in the sixteenth century to such
an extent tliat lodges in towns outside of Ireland made requests for
Warrants from the Grand Lodge of Ireland. An instance quoted is that
of the City of Inverness, Scotland, hi A.Q.C. Vol. vii (1894) page 88
reference is made to the services of a very prominent member of Lodge
Inverness, Captain John Gregor. On his retirement from the Army in
1 764, he joined the Lodge in his native town and straight away "from
his great ability and strength in Masonry, was unanimously elected
Master, which important chair he filled for ten years". Where had Bro.
John Gregor attained his remarkable skill in Masonry? The answer is
easy. The famous Regiment in which he served, the 42nd Highlanders,
or Black Watch, then known as Lord John Murray's Regiment, had at
work within it, from 1749 to 1815, and Irish Military Lodge No. 195
on our Register. What more natural then, than that Inverness.
Military Brethren should apply for a warrant to the Grand Lodge
of Ireland with whose work they were familiar, under whose auspices
their great exemplar, John Gregor, had been trained.
IRISH RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER CONSTITUTIONS
There are numerous examples of Masons from the Constitution
being invited to senior positions in other, e.g. Sir Thomas Prendergast,
J.G.W. of England in 1725 was in the same year acting as S.G.W of
Ireland; When the Grand Lodge of Munster was formed in 1 726 the
elected G.M. the Hon. James O'Brien and Springett Perm, were both
English masons made in London; Lord Kingston was elected Grand
Master of Ireland in 1731 and G.M. of Munster later that year - after
having filled the office of G. M. of England in 1730. Thus in the very
earliest years of the two oldest Grand Lodges in the World we find
fraternal contact established, the best of feeling prevailed, and an
apprenticeship in one Constitution succeeded by mastering in the other.
Another interesting case - the Earl of Antrim was initiated while a
student at Oxford in a Modem Lodge became first of all Grand Master
of Ireland and then Grand Master of the Ancients in England.
Incidently even with the interchange of visitation between the two
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 27
Conslilutions the Grand Lodge of Ireland never changed its Ritual in
accordance with advice issued from England, hi fact according to W.
Bro. Lepper the huge majority of English Lodges never made those
alterations in Ritual which the G.L. of England had recommended in
1730 or thereabouts. Apparently these changes were in fact quite
insignificant and he adds .."in short, I have been forced to adopt the
conclusion that there can have been nothing of importance to
differentiate the bulk of the English Modem Masons from their Ancient
brethren in England, Ireland, Scotland or the Great Britain across the
Atlantic."
{Q.C - Vol. XXVI - Pg. 140) However, the great schism of the
Ancients and Modems was happily closed in 1 8 1 3 by the establisliment
of the United Grand Lodge of England. It is contrary to the spirit of our
Order to boast; but it must be admitted that the system of the Ancients,
which was the same as that of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, was
practically adopted by the United Grand Lodge, and the innovations of
the Modems were for the most part abandoned.
There are a number of cases whereby the Grand Lodge of Ireland
granted warrants to Masons who belonged to another Constitution
during the 19th century - the first instance no. 50 to the Fourth
Regiment of Dragoons (Dated 5th January 1 8 1 5). Whilst in this 20th
Century the first Warrant issued by any Constitution was Menan
Lodge, no. 300 for Bangkok granted by the Grand Lodge of Ireland 4th
Oct. 1900 - tlie tliree names in the Warrant were members of the
English Constitution. The leader of this group was Bro. Travers -
Drapes, RD.D.G.M. of Bumia (E.C.) and local secretary for Quator
Coronati in that country. Unfortunately he died in Singapore 28th Oct.
1900 and the Lodge which he had hoped to found was never
constituted. However the incident is most important as it reveals the
respect held by prominent English Masons for the Sister Constitution,
manifested by their desire to establish one of their warrants abroad, and
the confidence shown by the Grand Lodge of Ireland in granting the
request of the petitioners - a confidence based on a long experience of
English Masonry.
No outline of the Masonic relations between the two Constitutions
would be complete without a mention of the 'sojoumers'. This could
well have come from the influence of the old gilds. Masons travelling
Page No. 28 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
away from home, who were forced to apply for charity. The Grand
Lodge of Ireland was poor, and home applicants rarely received more
than one guinea at a time; it is pleasing to fmd that when larger sums
were granted these usually went to applicants living outside of Ireland,
thus three guineas were paid on 10th December 1 789 to Thomas Power
of Lodge no. 280 in Great Britain, and another three guineas on 5th
August 1790 to James Crow of Liverpool.
In England at this particular period the Ancients and Modems
Grand Lodges had not yet been united and even though the Grand
Lodge of Ireland had made a pledge in 1772 not to recognise the
Modems it is interesting to note that on 7th September 1804, charity
amounting to £2 5s 6d (Irish Currency) was given to Brother Henry
McArdel of Lodge No. 463, England, now Lodge Friendship No. 277,
Oldham.
Incidently candidates for charity in Ireland were careftiUy tested
as to their Masonic Knowledge. However, there is no question but that
the poorer country attempted to do its duty by distressed Masons from
a Constitution that was a constant benefactor of indigent Irish Masons.
In numberless instances these applications received money to carry
them back to Ireland.
PECULIAR DEGREES
(Pg. 145) During the eighteenth century innumerable and fanciful
degrees and fantastic rites were invented and engrafted on the primitive
stock of speculative Masonry, which had been evolved out of the
Operative Guilds. The reputation of our Order in this way became
threatened at the end of the eighteenth century. The Supreme Council
of the U.S.A., then hailing from Charleston, South Carolina, in 1802,
intervened, with the object of identifying genuine Freemasonry,
checking further innovation and procuring the acceptance of a standard
uniformity. This action was ultimately successful, and led to the
general adoption of a Rite of 33 Degrees.
Under the Irish Constitution after the three Craft Degrees and the
Royal Arch Degrees comes the Knights Templar or Chivalric Masonry,
the first degree limited to those professing the Christian Religion All
degrees above the Templar are limited to Christians. The next is the
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 29
Rose Croix (18th Degree). The only degrees now worked in keland
above it are the 28th, 30th, 31st, 32nd and 33rd.
ENTERED APPRENTICE'S CHARGE
Vol. XI - 1898 - Page 26 It may come as a surprise to many to
learn that the official promulgation of this world wide charge is due to
the Grand Lodge of Ireland." The Grand Lodge of Ireland 1734 - 5,
Viscount Kingsland, together with his Deputy and Grand Wardens,
appended tlieir formal Approbation to the earliest version of this
charge, which appeared in the Irish Pocket Companion of that date.
Those of you who are familiar with the "Charge to the Newly
initiated Candidate" in our Book of Constitutions Page 128 will
recognise this charge - which starts off "As you have now passed
through the ceremony of your initiation...." I have given the text of the
old original in Appendix A.
IRELAND'S LADY FREEMASON
Ireland had the distinction of having one lady member of the craft.
Although it has been regarded as a myth, an idle story invented by
some outsider with the object of ridiculing us; yet late investigations
have tended to prove it's authority. The Lady was the Honourable
Elizabeth St. Leger, daughter of Lord Doneraile. The ceremony of her
initiation is said to have taken place in a Lodge held in Doneraile Court
about the year 1712, when she was no more than eighteen or nineteen
years of age, as she was bom in 1693. She had overheard Masonic
matters, and it was thought advisable to admit her into the craft under
the obligation of secrecy. Her fiiture husband, Richard Alsworth, to
whom she was Married in 1713, was present at her admission in
Freemasonry. We have no positive proof that any other woman was
ever admitted in Ireland.
ILLUSTRIOUS IRISHMEN
(Pg. 142) Many illustrious Irishmen have been and are to this day
members of the Craft. During the dark period, when masonry was, one
might say, rather under the weather, several very distinguished persons
Page No. 30 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
joined the Order, including Elias Ashmole. Now what was Hkely to
induce a man like Elias Ashmole, the founder of the Ashmolean
Library, Oxford, to join a rather "decadent trades union of builders",
unless there was something in it of a very much more spiritual nature?
It is clear that he, and men like him who joined at the same time,
recognised that it was, or included, a peculiar system of morals. In fact
that within this organisation or society, and shielded by the secrecy
which legitimately guarded the secrets of the builders' art, lay truths
which had in this way been brought safely through the dark ages of
ignorance, superstition, and religious dogma and persecution. They
have often been accused of having brought Rosicucian ideas into
Masonry, I think it is much more likely that they found them there, or
expected to find them, and so were brought into the fold.
THE TRIM LODGE
(Pg. 1 10 - V. XV) In the closing days of the eighteenth century we
must record that the lodge held at Trim with Warrant No. 494, was
perhaps one of the most famous in Irish Masonry. It may be considered
the family lodge of the Wesley's of Dangam and to which a number of
the famous statesmen belonged including the Grand Master of Ireland
who along with the Grand Master of Scotland took a prominent part at
the Installation of the Duke of Athole, Grand Master of the Grand
Lodge of the Ancients in 1770.
The Duke of Wellington, the Famous Iron Duke as he was called
in those days was raised in Trim Lodge in 1790. A fact not so well
known is that he came ft"om a famous Masonic family. His father
Garrett Wesley, the 1st Earl of Momington, was Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1776. He was a great Musician and won a
Doctor of Music Degree fi'om the University of Dublin. His four sons
were indeed famous in their own right and were rewarded for their
services to the State by attaining seats in the House of Lords. The third
son was the Duke of Wellington.
There is evidence that this Lodge sometimes met in the Grand
Jury Room (The Grand Jury room was Irish correlative of the modem
County Council). Apparently the Lodge also met in Dangan Castle
itself as often as the convenience of the Grand Master or the well -
being of the Lodge demanded it. However the gentry gradually moved
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 31
away from thai part of the keland at the end of the 1 8th Century due
to the centralization involved by the legislative Union of Great Britain
and Ireland. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic Church began to act
upon the Bull against Freemasonry, which had, till then, been allowed
to remain dormant, or, in ecclesiastical phrase, "unpublished" in
h-eland. The Number of lodges on the Register of Ireland fell from over
one thousand to one - half that number. The Trim lodge dwindled in
numbers until in 1838 only three members remained who had
continuously paid all dues to Grand Lodge out of their own pockets. As
they were over the age of 70 they were not able to continue working
the lodge. They "prayed" Grand Lodge to entrust the Warrant to certain
Brethren resident of Dublin, where the Lodge could be maintained.
"The Dublin Brethren whom the Trim Lodge had affiliated for this
purpose were well - known and zealous members of Lodge No. 2. The
petition found favour in the eyes of Grand Lodge and the Dublin Lodge
has ever since worked under the warrant originally granted to Trim
Lodge."
(Pg. 106) There is the story of a close friend of the Rev. John
Wesley, a zealous preacher by the name of Rev. Charles Graham, who
visited Mallow and preached an open - air sermon. He chanced to take
up his position beneath the windows of a room where a lodge was wont
to meet. The Brethren could not but hear the preacher's voice. Having
closed the lodge, they lingered on, attracted by his fervour. "They grew
intent on the service, and at its close, respectfully requested the
preacher to enter the Lodge - room." He accordingly, says his
biographer, with a somewhat clumsy, though well intentioned adaption
of Masonic Phraseology, "Ascended the ladder, laid Justice to the Rule,
and Righteousness to the Plummet, and Squared off at least one Living
stone for our Spiritual Building' and, by so doing, made a sure home
for our Ministers in coming years, whereby a whole family became
partakers of the Grace of Eternal Life.' (From The Apostle of Kerry').
Incidently Bro. Samuel Wesley, bom in 1776 at the age of 22 was
initiated in the famous lodge of Antiquity No.l on the Register of the
Grand Lodge of the Modems. He was appointed Grand Organist in
1812, being the first to hold that office. He was in his place as Grand
Organist at the Grand Assembly which ratified the Article of Union in
1813 and at the inaugural Communication of the United Grand Lodge
which was established by those Articles. In 1813 he composed and
Page No. 32 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
conducted a Grand Antliem in honour of the United Grand Lodge of
England. A few years later he composed a Grand Mass for the Chapel
of Pope Pius VI. As a sort of counter balance he composed for the
Church of England, a complete set of Mattins and Evensong "which at
once took place among our most esteemed Cathedral Services."
IRISH MILITARY LODGES
According to the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1957 there were 230
Irish Military Lodges, 166 English and 21 Scottish.
The importance of the fratemalization of these lodges in Gibraltor
is mentioned tliat in the last decade of the eighteenth century these
Military Lodges nor only supported the Ancient Provincial Grand
Lodge of Andalusia (an old province of Spain) but tlirough it paid
contributions to the Grand Lodge in London, though retaining their
Irish Allegiance; and further the Grand Lodge of Ireland ordered its
Lodge stationed at die Rock to submit to the ruling of the Provincial
Grand Lodge of Andalusia, though the latter was a branch of the sister
Constitution. A good masonic understanding could hardly find a more
illuminative record. I am not going to go into the detail of the location
of the Irish Military Lodges as I am sure you are aware that are
scattered all over the world.
It is interesting to note that the Grand Lodge of Ireland while
conceding very full powers to the local masonic authorities abroad, did
not scruple to make use of the same itself at home over visiting lodges,
e.g. When Provincial Grand Lodge of Andalucia ordered the
suspension of two Irish Military Lodges in Gibraltor for "non -
masonic" conduct; they complained to the G. L. of h-eland who replied
that they were answerable to the Laws and Regulations of the Ancient
Craft, and that Gibraltor must conform to the Rules and Orders of the
Provincial Grand Lodge" which is this case happened to be under the
G.L. of England. (During this period the 1790s in Gibraltar there were
military and civil lodges of which six were Irish)
CONCLUSION
Before I end this paper I must refer to comments made by
M.W.Bro. J. Heron Lepper in the fmal paragraphs of his inaugural
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 33
speech to the Q.C.C. in 1924.
He suggested that at every period in the story of the world's two
oldest masonic Constitutions we can find traces of the same fraternal
feelings that unite us today. Though matter of ritual and procedure may
have been visualized by each Constitution from a different angle, in all
that make our great Brotherhood vital and universal, there never has
been and never will be any difference between English and Irish
Masonry, or, for that matter, between these twain and any other
Constitution that has preserved the Old Landmarks.
"In conclusion," he states, "it only remains for me to express my
profound belief that the Irish Mason who has had the good fortune to
pursue his labours in the Royal Arch somewhat farther East than the
confines of his Mother Constitution is for many things to be envied.
"He may have to unlearn the methods of wearing his apron and
the use of certain archaic expressions but before he has shed even those
traces of insularity he will have discovered that in essence of what
really matters there is no change at all. - He will fmd that inside the
walls of a Masonic Lodge the very best of company is grouped, that the
atmosphere of brotherly love knows nothing of the alterations of
longitude and that the tongue of brotherly welcome is the same even
though the accent or brogue may be slightly different and the will to
speedily discover that Masonry is the same East and West.
"That in itself is a great privilege" and when, in addition he marks
the goodwill of those who but yesterday were strangers to him,
experience the friendship and understanding sympathy of those new
brethren in whose labour he now shares, learns of the amazing
generosity which meets every demand to the poor and distressed, and
finds a place in the ranks where he can continue to serve as happily and
perhaps as usefrilly as ever before, then he will indeed find something
stirring in his heart that rejoices at the thought of labours still to come."
Page No. 34 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The History of the Grand Lodge of Ireland Volume I - Chap. 1
ti II n II "IT
The Londonerry Plantation - 1609/1914 (J.S. Curl - 1986)
The Plantation of Ulster - (1610)
The Guilds of Dublin ( J.W. Webb - 1829)
The Apostle of Kerry
QCCVol. VII (1894) P. 88
QCC Vol. VIII (1895) Notes on Irish Freemasonry F.M. (Crawley I, II,
III)
QCC Vol. XI (1898)Bodleian Masonic MSS (Crawley)
QCC Vol. XV (1902) Notes on Irish FM (Crawley VI) The Welseys
QCC Vol. XXVI (1913) The Rise of Wsh FM (Edge)
" " " Episodes in Irish FM (Berry)
QCC Vol. XXVIII (1916) The International Compact Pg. 153-4
QCC Vol. XXXVII (1924) hiaugural Address (Lepper)
Journal (Royal Society of Antiquaries Part iv Vol. XXXV) 1905
• " (1899 -Berry)
The Story of the Irish Sept. (1896 - Macnamara)
Transactions of the Manchester Lodge of Research Vol. XIII (1922-23)
Pg. 55-80 - Fraternal Communication - the G.L. of England and Ireland
in the 18th Century - J.H.Lepper)
APPENDIX A
- A SHORT CHARGE TO BE GIVEN TO NEW
ADMITTED BRETHREN -
"You are now admitted by ye unanimous Consent of your Lodge,
a Fellow of our most Ancient and Honourable Society, Ancient, as
having subsisted from times immemorial; and Honourable, as tending
in every particular to render a Man so that will be but conformable to
its glorious precepts. The Greatest Monarchs of all Ages, as well as of
Asia and Africa as of Europe have any lessening to their Imperial
Dignities to Level themselves with their Brethren in Masonry and to
Act as they did.
The World's Great Architect is our Supreme Master, and the
Unerring Rule he has given us, is that by which we work.
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 35
Religious Disputes are never suffered in the Lodge: for as Masons,
we only pursue the ujiiversal Religion or the Religion of Nature. This
is the Cement wliich unites men of the most different Principles in one
sacred band, and brings together those who were ye most distant from
one another.
There are tlirec general Heads of Duty which Masons ought
always to inculcate, Viz. of God, our Neighbours, and ourselves.
To God, in never mentioning His name but with that Reverential
Awe which becomes a Creature to bear to his Creator, and to look upon
Him always as the Sumum-Bomum which we came into the world to
enjoy; and according to that view to regulate all our Pursuits.
To our Neighbours, as acting upon the Square, and doing as we
would be done by.
To ourselves in avoiding all Intemperances and Excesses whereby
we may be rendered incapable of following our Work, or led into
Behaviour ujibecoming our laudable profession, and always keeping
within due bounds and free from all Pollution.
In the State, a Mason is to behave as a peaceable and dutiful
subject conforming cheerfully to the Government under which he lives.
He is to be a man of Benevolence and Charity, not sitting down
contented while his Fellow Creatures, but more his Bretliren, arc in
Want, when it is in his power (without prejudicing himself or Family)
to relieve them.
In the Lodge, he is to behave with all due Decorum lest the
Beauty and Harmony thereof should be disturbed or broke.
He is to be obedient to the Master presiding Officers, and to apply
himself closely to the Business of Masonry, that he may sooner become
a Proficient therein, both for his own credit and for that of the Lodge.
He is not to neglect his own necessary Avocations for the sake of
Masonry, nor to involve himself in Quarrels with those who tlirough
Ignorance may speak evil of, or ridicule it.
Page No. 36 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
He is to be a lover of the Arts and Sciences, and to take all
Opportunities of improving himself therein.
If he recommends a friend to be a Mason he must vouch him to
be such as he really believes will conform to the aforesaid duties, lest
by his Misconduct at any time the Lodge should pass under evil
imputations. Nothing can prove more shocking to all faithful Masons,
than to see any of their Brethren profane or break tlirough the Sacred
Rules of their Order, and such as can do it they wish they had never
been admitted."
APPENDIX B
With due respect for the Irish we must touch on their realm of
legend and romance. There is, perhaps, no name more familiar in Irish
legend than that of Gobham Saer, the wonder Smith who built the most
incredible fairy palaces and such things. That Gobham Saer was an
actual individual, around whose name the most marvellous myths have
grown up, is made pretty clear by Eugene O 'Curry {Manners and
Customs of the Ancient Irish) and other authorities. Among them our
Brother Philip Crossle; there is a very interesting article by him in the
Transactions of the Lodge of Research of 1934.
Stripped of all its romantic surroundings the story of Gobham Saer
is briefly as follows;-
About the Time St. Columbanus was sheltering with Agilulf of
Lombardy (about 600 A.D.) there appeared in Ireland a swarthy
foreigner; "This nasty large black youth. It is not known of what stock
his race." So says an ancient chronicle. His name, Torinus (of Turin)
was Irishised so to speak, into Tuirbi Traghmar, (Turveyof the Strand),
a name which is still commemorated in Turvey's Strand near Donabate.
His son called himself Comancinus Liber, which the Irish could not
understand, took him at his word and called him Gobham Saer, which,
I understand, can be translated "Free Mason".
Gobham Saer was a notable builder. He is described in the ancient
life of St. Alban as; A distinguished builder residing convenient to St.
Alban, whose constant occupation was to do the work of the Saints in
every place in which they were. You can fmd in O' Curry some records
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 37
of the oratories and churches which he built for St. Alban, St. MoHng
and otlier of the hierarchy of tlie day. But it seems to have been in the
Round Towers that he speciahsed; Sir Thomas Drew writes;- "Tradition
and chronicles are very precise as to what towers the great Free-mason,
son of Torinus, built, and those for which he was not responsible. They
are in each case the most 'artful' of all tlie Towers of Ireland." He goes
on to say;- "Whence came to Ireland the masonic secret of the 'entasis'
of the column, the tradition of ancient Greece and Rome? Some
Masters of the Collegium, preserving an ancient knowledge, alone
could have imparted this."
Page No. 38 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
REVIEWS OF PAPER PRESENTED TO
by
Rt. War. Bro, John Storey
Titled
History of Irish Freemasonry
and The Old Guilds
FIRST REVIEW - was presented by W. Bro. Sydney
Grant, Historian, St. John's Lodge #20, London Ont.
There isn't very much I can offer by the way of a review. The
references quoted are not available to me. Without these, a meaningful
critique is difficult to prepare. Bro. John Storey has obviously done a
great deal of research in preparing this paper Any comments submitted
after a cursory study would be quite improper
There were about ten (10) Lodges warranted under the Grand
Lodge of Ireland working in Canada West in 1 855. Many had travelling
military warrants.
There are two practices of the Grand Lodge of h-eland which seem
to be somewhat unique. The first would seem to be merely ad-
ministrative. The second more doctrinal. The first is the apparent
practice of not retiring a lodge number permanently once the Lodge has
ceased working. Let me use the number 209 as an example since this
was our number in 1844. The information I have states that 209 LR.
was first assigned to a Lodge in Dublin in 1750. That Lodge returned
it's charter in 1835. The number was then assigned to our lodge as St.
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 39
John's Lodge No. 209 I.R. when we began working here in London
Ontario in 184L When we joined the newly formed Grand Lodge in
Canada in 1855 the number became dormant again since no meetings
were held until 1860. At tliat time some of our members wished to
separate and return to working under the G.L. of Ireland. They
petitioned the G.L. of Ireland and were given the pemiission to begin
working again as St. John's Lodge No. 209 I.R.. Then in 1872 these
brethren joined die G.L. of Canada and took the number 209a. The 209
G.R.C. had already been assigned to Evergreen Lodge in Lanark. The
number 209 LR. was next assigned to Unity Lodge, St. George's,
Bermuda in 188L They returned their charter in 1909. Finally, the
number 209 LR. was assigned to St. Fin Barre's Lodge, Cork in 1909.
That lodge is still working. You may recall that two of their members
came to London Ontario in 1991 to join in our Scsquicentennial
celebrations. To the best of my knowledge this re-cycling of numbers
is peculiar to the G.L. of Ireland.
The other difference is the absence of the letter "G" between the
square and compasses. I noticed this on a recent video of the G.L. of
Ireland. I do not know the reasons for this. However, the G.L. of
Ireland issues warrants to lodges in many different parts of the world.
It may be that the letter "G", or our use of it, is not acceptable to some
other cultures or religions. It poses the question of how the lessons we
are taught in the "G" lecture are communicated in these other cultures.
It may serve as a useful topic for masonic education.
When the G.L. of Canada was formed in 1855 it was decided to
adopt an English ritual as the standard working. Our Lodge was
excluded from this and given permission to "work as heretofore",
subject to the Grand Master's will and pleasure. This privilege was also
extended to the brethren of 209a when they joined the G.L. of Canada
in 1872. There were concerns expressed that allowing two lodges to
Page No. 40 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
work a different ritual might lead to some lack of harmony, hi 1889, a
resolution to require us to drop our Irish ritual was defeated at Grand
Lodge. The fears proved groundless. Instead of "engendering strife"
quite the opposite has happened. By tlie very nature of the work, and
our willingness to visit other districts to exemplify our work we feel we
have been a unifying force for the craft, and a vehicle for many lodges
to gather together in brotherhood and harmony to "con-template the
beauty of Freemasonry"
Well, there you have it, not a scholarly treatise but I hope it may
be of some interest.
COMMENTS ON THE REVIEW
by
W. Bro. Sydney Grant
I am most grateftal for the time and effort W. Bro. Grant has put
into his review which I have found to be most interesting.
The Irish practice of retaining Lodge numbers certainly makes
work of an Historian and researcher very much easier.
I am particularly interested in your comment concerning the Letter
"G". Personally I do not recall having seen the Letter "G" displayed in
a lodge room before I came to Canada. A learned Irish Freemason
advised me that you are quite correct in your observation that there is
no display of the Letter in the Irish Grand Lodge. Incidently according
to R. Wor. Ralph in the March 1993 issue of "Chips'' there is no "G"
on this building.
This is one example of differences in existence in Lodge rooms
throughout Masonry. If you looked at a photograph of the central lodge
room of the Grand Lodge of England you would have noticed there is
no letter "G" - that the floor is completely covered with the black and
white square pavement and that the alter or pedestal is in front of the
Master's chair. In the Grand Lodge of Scotland the pedestal is similarly
placed to ours, whilst in the G.L. of Ireland it is halfway between the
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 41
middle and the Master's chair - both of which have no Letter "G" in
evidence. In Singapore tliere is a lodge under the G.L. of England
where on the pedestal in front of the Master's chair lies six V.S.L.s
which are open whenever the lodge is open.
Yet in spite of these minor cosmetic differences the basic essence
of Freemasonry is just the same. The atmosphere of Brotherly Love
with the tongue of brotherly welcome is common to all.
As you so rightly remarked even though there are differences in
ritual "by the very nature of our work, and our willingness to visit the
districts we feel that we have been and are a unifying force in the Craft
and the means of bringing harmony and brotherhood thereby con-
templating the beauty of Freemasonry."
INTRODUCTION of SECOND REVIEW
by
Rt. Wor. Bro. Charles Crow
P.M. St. John's #209a London Ont.
Honoured with the opportunity to respond to a very enlightening
and well documented paper structured on the topic ''A History of Irish
Freemasonry And The Old Guilds'' and another ''A Glimpse Of What
We Owe To The Irish" prepared by our honoured and learned Bro.
Captain John Storey.
I certainly appreciate the unexpected invitation given me by R.W.
Bro. Robert Throop; to reveal my thoughts on the subject herein titled,
again I very unexpectedly deprived myself of this privilege where I
summoned my own Lodge Historian for his assistance and promptly
received it with overwhelming abundance, precision and interest as to
augment the subject article with equal appeal.
Permission obtained from the author of this review, I have with
little reluctance put aside my own review and present the following
commentary by Wor Bro. Norman Pearson Ph.D. D.B.A; Fellow of the
College of Freemasonry, member of the Philalathes Society, Historian
of St. John's Lodge 209a London Ont. and a fellow from as near to the
north of England, home town of Bro. Storey and myself and to which
Page No. 42 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
we are proud to admit.
R.W. Bro. Storey reveals his Guilds affiliations in his opening
remarks, I would likewise admit my affiliation to the Old City of
London Guild of Electrical Technology and so confirm the existence
of the modem Guild.
SECOND REVIEW
presented by
R.W. Bro. Charles W. Crow:
on behalf of
Wor. Bro. Norman Pearson.'
It is a privilege to comment on Bro. Storey's paper, not least
because he puts his finger very precisely on the issue which goes to the
root of Masonic scholarship regarding our origins and antecedents; that
issue is, how we deal with what is essentially an oral tradition solely by
the method of literary documentation? The answer is quite clearly that
we can not, when we go back beyond a time to the point where most
were illiterate. Here the skills of the literary historian must necessarily
pay due respect to cultural historians. These skills are badly needed.
This is worth stating, because it is inherent in the 1909 comment of the
Duke of Leinster, Quoted at the onset of the paper, as well as being
inherent in the author's concern over the lack of documentation due to
the turbulence of the Irish history.
Many historians of Freemasonry are now on the basis of literary
history, virtually totally discrediting all of the current theories which
deal with what we ourselves in Canada have called "the credibility gap"
in our ritual (pp 65 - 70, Beyond The Pillars, Grand Lodge: 1973:
Masonic Holdings: Hamilton, Ont.). Indeed, the latest challenges have
virtually thrown out all the work of Pike, Waite and the last remaining
literal history linkage to the past, namely the theory of the gradual
evolution of Craft Masonry from the guilds or from operative Masonry.
We may well ask: What is left? We may also ask: Why do we
zealously destroy almost every vestige of that received testimony of
teaching by symbol and allegory? Which leads to a further question: If
the Craft is so concerned to "debunk" all it's received history, with no
remaining theory as to our evolution, could that be why young Masons
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 43
are discouraged, and why many good men are deterred from joining.
Where we may ask, is the science of teaching by symbol and allegory?
I salute our brother for raising this issue. It goes far beyond the paper:
but it is crucial to the future of our history.
I also salute Bro. Storey for reminding us of the rich heritage in
and from Ireland, and for reminding us of what we owe to Ireland. In
St. John's No. 209a, we are acutely conscious of the fact that
Freemasonry reached S.W. Ontario through military travelling warrants
from the Grand Lodge of Ireland; that our Grand Lodge was largely
formed at the initiative of the "Irish" Lodges: and that London has two
working Irish Lodges, St. John's 20 and St. John's 209a, both des-
cended legitimately from the same ancestor, St. John's 209.
Returning to Ireland, the great tragedy of the Grand Lodge of
Ireland is that all official records of the Grand Lodge, and all the
minute books and documents from the ancient times prior to 1 780 were
lost. Probably accidentally destroyed by fire (Jepper, J.H. and Crosse
P.: History of the Grand Lodge oj Free and Accepted Masons of
Ireland 1925).
We do know that the earliest documented references to the Royal
Arch degrees is in connection with Lodge No. 21 in Youghal, Ireland,
1743 (Chetwode Crawley). W.J.: Caementaria Hibernia: Fasciculus I,
1895). I agree with Bro. Storey on the tremendous influence of Irish
Freemasonry on the whole period of the Ancients and the Modems.
This influence is particularly evident in Canada, and it went on longer
because the great Schism here was not resolved until 1858. The
attachment and dedication of generations of Masons to ancient
practices, from 1717 to 1858, a period of 140 years, in itself speaks
volumes about the strengths of the fresh tradition, which indicates to
me that it was deep-seated long before the Grand Lodge of Ireland.
This is scarcely surprising in the Allied Masonic Degrees we
preserve the legend of the Red Branch of Eri. That legend speaks of an
Order of Freemasonry founded in 1697 B.C. by the King of Ireland,
finally ceasing its military activities in 1649 - 1659. What are we to
make of a legend covering 3,250 years? Yet the ancient book THE
ANNALS OF THE FOUR MASTERS OF IRELAND gives great detail
of the Royal Order of Eri. Given such longevity, and the survival of the
Page No. 44 HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY
ritual, there is surely some nub of truth in the oral tradition. It bespeaks
a possible transition to modem freemasonry, at least as credible as the
Guild Theory. Indeed they may be one and the same, because the order
had its branches of teachers, hospitallers, judges, educators, historians,
artists and scientist. In 332 A.D. a disastrous fire at the Great College
at Armaugh destroyed all the records and documents, and the Order
tlien moved to Tara.
There is also much food for thought in the similarities between the
Irish Craft Ritual, the Royal Order of Scotland, The Red Branch of Eri,
and tlie Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. I cannot believe tliat the
survival of all these elements is based on a blank in history. The Oral
Tradition is trying to tell us something. Here I pay tribute to Bro.
Storey for his efforts at crossing many disciplines because we need
such work. In the instance of Ireland he very eloquently hints at what
may be behind all this. The cultural suppression of the Old Celtic
Church, the ancient Irish Culture, and the antecedents of the craft. Is
that what the legend of "Gobham Saer; (Free Mason)" is all about? Is
it because Freemasonry has always fought for human dignity and
freedom that those ancient orders have been preserved within all ranks?
We have only to look at the re -emergence of Freemasonry in Russia,
after a persecution of 70 years, to realize how vital such legends are
when there are terrible breaks in cultural evolution, as it is reintroduced
into Siberia from the Grand Lodge od Alaska {American Masonic
Review: Winter 1992 vol. 2, No. 1, page 7).
So with the legend of the "Lady Freemason" Bro. Storey is well
supported by research in Ireland done by Bro. D. Banks of St. John's
209a and Arcana Council No. 215, A.M.D. in a paper on the topic that
presented to the Arcana Council in 1992.
A famous Irish scholar said that "Celts care more for truth than
fact". Bro. Storey has brought us, via some interesting facts, to face
some fascinating and perhaps disturbing duths, and for that we must all
be gratefijl.
HISTORY OF IRISH FREEMASONRY Page No. 45
TWO FREEMASONS OF TWO HyN||||ip
YEARS AGO:
JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND
JOSEPH BRANT
by^
{An after-dinner talk to the Heritage Lodge, May 19, 1993)
I would like to thank you sincerely for inviting me to be your
after-dinner speaker tonight. As a non-Mason, it is a privilege to
address you as you celebrate the bicentennial of Freemasonry in
Toronto.
Two hundred years ago, southern Ontario was the backwoods
British colony of Upper Canada. It had a population of ten thousand
white and black settlers. Many of them had come here as refugees from
the American Revolution nine or ten years earlier, and almost all of
them lived hard and dreary lives in the poverty of the Upper Canadian
forest. In addition to these people, three or four thousand Iroquoian and
Algonkian people lived in the southern sections of the province, and a
thousand soldiers guarded the new border with the untrustworthy and
expanding republic across the lakes. The two most powerful people in
the Upper Canada of the 1 790s - and the two biggest "trouble-makers" -
were John Graves Simcoe and Joseph Brant. As you might expect,
both of them were Masons! It is these individuals and their response to
the major crisis facing Upper Canadians in 1 793 and 1 794 that I would
like to speak about tonight.
Bom in England in 1752, John Graves Simcoe received his
education at Eton and Oxford. He joined the Union Lodge in Exeter in
1773 when serving in that city as a young lieutenant in the 35th
Page No. 46 JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT
Regiment of Foot.' He was a professional soldier who subsequently
was wounded three times in the Atlantic campaigns of tlie American
Revolution while commanding the famous Loyalist regiment, the
Queen's Rangers. As you all know, the Revolutionaries won tlie war,
led by another "trouble-making" Mason, George Washington. Simcoe
then returned to England where he sat in Parliament before being
appointed lieutenant-governor of the newly-created Province of Upper
Canada in 1791.
Thayendanegea, or Joseph Brant, was a Mohawk of the Wolf
Clan. Bom in 1743 at Cayohoga (in today's Ohio) and educated in
Lebanon, Connecticut, Brant fought with distinction in the frontier
campaigns of the American Revolution at the head of a mixed Loyalist
and Iroquois force. (The Iroquois Confederacy at that time consisted of
six Iroquoian tribes: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Onondagas,
Cayugas, and Senecas.) It was during the Revolution that Joseph Brant
became a Mason, being inducted into the Falcon Lodge during a visit
to England in 1776.^ After the Crown defeat in the war, Brant led
eighteen hundred Iroquois and other natives from New York State to
a new home on the Grand River within British territory. The prestige
Joseph Brant won during the Revolution, combined with his political
talents and the close relationships he had established with British
officials, enabled him to become the dominant aboriginal leader in the
colony.
As you can see, Simcoe and Brant had some things in common:
they were Freemasons, they were educated people, they were veteran
military leaders, they wielded considerable power, and they both had
suffered in the late war. As well, they both were staunch Churchmen:
in 1787 Brant built the first Anglican chapel in the province, which still
stands in Brantford, while Simcoe tried, but failed, to create a full
Church of England ecclesiastical establishment in Upper Canada. But
they also were different from each other. For example, John Graves
Simcoe hated slavery, and had the Upper Canadian legislature abolish
^ R. V. Harris, "John Graves Simcoe: Freemason, Soldier,
Statesmen," 1962, in The Papers of the Canadian Masonic Research
Association, (Toronto, 1986), 11:1170.
^ Barbara Graymont, "Thayendanegea" (Joseph Brant), in
Dictionary of Canadian Biography, (Toronto, 1983) V:805.
JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT Page No. 47
the importation of slaves into the province. Joseph Brant kept black
slaves. He liked to dress them in livery, put them on the back of his
coach, and drive through white settlements figuratively thumbing his
nose and the impoverished settlers trying to scratch a living out of the
soil.
Simcoe's first loyalty was to his King and the British Constitution,
and he strove to extend the blessings of that constitution to His
Majesty's Upper Canadian subjects. Brant's loyalties were to the
h-oquois peoples. Thus, as Simcoe and Brant worked together two
hundred years ago, they found themselves in conflict because the
interests of the King, and the interests of the Iroquois, frequently
diverged. However, they shared a common enemy in the form of the
new United States and it was the threat posed by this enemy that was
the greatest problem facing Upper Canadians two hundred years ago.
The end of the Revolution did not bring peace to the Great Lakes
frontier. In flagrant disregard of native land ownership, American
settlers moved rapidly onto the lands of the aboriginal peoples of the
region south of lakes Ontario and Erie after the return of "peace" in
1783. As I just mentioned, some of the Iroquois of New York came to
Canada with Brant in the 1780s. Others, representing the majority of
the Six Nations, remained in their traditional New York homelands but
found themselves forced onto reservations by the Americans who
regarded Iroquois lands as conquered territory and saw the Iroquois as
a dying race. Farther west, in the Ohio Valley, Michigan, and the area
south of Lake Erie, the western tribes such as the Delawares, Mingos,
Shawnees, and Wyandots saw the persecution of the Iroquois and
resisted the American threat to their homes through the only means
open to them - military force. After several years of guerilla war,
marked by savage brutality on both sides, the American government
sent an army into the Ohio Valley in 1790 to subdue the tribes.
However, it was the natives who defeated the Americans. In 1791, the
Miamis chief Little Turtle, at the head of the western confederacy,
destroyed a second American army in the greatest defeat the United
States ever suffered at the hands of aboriginal peoples. At this battle the
Americans lost over a thousand of the fourteen hundred men in their
force compared to only sixty aboriginal casualties.
The United States responded to these calamities by raising a third
army in 1792 and sent it west. By 1793, the American force was close
enough to the Canadian border to worry both Simcoe and Brant.
Simcoe feared the conquest of Upper Canada; Brant dreaded the loss
Page No. 48 JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT
of the Grand River lands should the United States take over the
province. To make matters worse, war broke out between Britain and
France in 1793. France had been America's primary ally during the
Revolution and pressured the United States to invade Canada. As it
was, the Americans gave assistance to French ships operating against
British maritime interests in the Caribbean. Here in Canada, French
secret agents spread sedition among the French-Canadian population of
Lower Canada and also tried to break up the British alliance with the
tribes. For tlieir part, many Americans believed tlie British had to be
expelled from Canada if the natives were to be defeated. Furthermore,
the outbreak of tlie Anglo-French war encouraged their anti-British
bellicosity and resurrected dreams of extending American sovereignty
into Canada. Thomas Jefferson expressed the view's of many Americans
when he said the outbreak of the European war rekindled "all the old
spirit of 1776.""^ (With an attitude like that, I wonder if he too was a
"trouble -making" Freemason.)
During this tense period the people of Vermont planned to invade
Lower Canada and absorb the colony into the United States. There
seems to have been a Masonic comiection to the Vermonters' plan.
Some American Freemasons apparently wanted to organize a lodge in
Montreal to forge links with Lower Canadians who could co-ordinate
an insurrection to occur at the same time as the Vermont invasion.'^
Surveying the deteriorating international situation, John Graves
Simcoe decided to build a naval base at Toronto to control Lake
Ontario. It was the establishment of Fort York in July 1793 preparatory
to constructing the naval base that was the founding of modem
Toronto. (This, of course, set in motion the events that saw Queen's
Rangers Lodge No. 3 meet in one of the fort's log huts shortly
afterwards, which you all know about from reading John Ross
Robertson.) As the situation worsened over the winter of 1793-1794,
the British adopted an aggressive approach to Canadian defence. In the
spring of 1794, Simcoe rebuik an old fort within American territory on
^ Ernest A. Cruikshank, ed., The Correspondence of Lieut.
Governor John Graves Simcoe, 5 vols., (Toronto, 1923-1926), 1:328,
Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, May 5, 1793.
^ Cruikshank, IV:359, J. G. Simcoe to George Beckwith, May
19, 1794.
JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT Page No. 49
the Maumee River one hundred kilometres south of Detroit. That post,
Fort Miamis, had two functions: to block the American army's route to
Canada, and to show support for the western tribes in their struggle
with the Americans. Simcoe made additional plans to cut the American
army's lines of communication should hostilities break out between
Britain and the United States. These plans called for a combined British
and h-oquois force to move overland from Canada to the Ohio River.
Once there, Simcoe hoped to isolate the American army by knocking
out its supply depots, and then, if necessary, move against the enemy
in support of operations undertaken by the western tribes.
Joseph Brant, however, interpreted the American danger
differently from Simcoe and pursued a much more cautious strategy.
At the end of the American Revolution the British negotiated the
current Canadian- American border with the United States. The problem
with this boundary was that the lands of Britain's Iroquois and other
aboriginal allies lay on the "American" side of the border. This was
particularly galling for the native peoples because they and their British
allies had won the frontier campaigns of the Revolution. Therefore, the
tribes saw no reason for Britain to give up the land between the Great
Lakes and the Ohio River. Joseph Brant expressed native opinion when
he angrily declared that the British had "sold the Indians to
Congress."^ With such an unhappy experience behind him. Brant was
certain to be wary when Simcoe approached him for military support.
The situation for Brant and the Iroquois was more complex than it was
for Simcoe because the Six Nations' population was split by the
British-American border. Those who lived in Canada generally
supported the British, but their Revolutionary War experiences made
them suspicious of their allies and made them wonder what would
happen to their lands should the Americans conquer the province if
they showed their support militarily. Furthermore, with many Iroquois
in New York living on reservations surrounded by white settlers, the
Iroquois on both sides of the border had to be careful lest they do
anything to anger the Americans, and thereby endanger the already-
precarious Six Nations land holdings in the United States.
Despite these concerns, Brant had laboured through most of the
1780s to form an alliance between the Iroquois and the westem tribes
to resist American expansion onto their lands. However, as the crisis of
^ Graymont, V:806.
Page No. 50 JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT
1793-1794 reached the boiling point, and as tlie western tribes and the
British prepared for combat, Joseph Brant used his influence to pull his
followers away from the brink of war. Wliy did he change liis policy?
The Americans, after being defeated in 1790 and 1791, undertook a
two-track approach for solving the frontier problem. One was military,
as witnessed by the advance of the American army against the tribes.
The other was diplomatic, and included a mission to try to arrange a
peace treaty. (Some of the meetings between the Americans and the
tribes took place at the Masonic Hall in Niagara-on-the-Lake.)^ Given
the native successes of 1 790 and 1791, Brant hoped diplomacy could
solve the crisis. However, as negotiations began, he found himself in
serious conflict witli the western tribes. These tribes, inspired by their
recent victories, took a tough stand with the Americans and demanded
a boundary between white and native land based on a 1768 treaty.^
Brant thought this was a mistake because he believed recent settlement
beyond the treaty line would have to be accepted by the tribes if they
hoped to arrive at an negotiated peace. He assumed the Americans
would not be willing to remove their settlers from the aboriginal side
of the boundary because of the number of people involved. (For
example, just south of the Ohio River, the white population of
Kentucky had grown from 300 in 1775 to 73,000 in 1790. The total
native population of the disputed region was 30,000.) Consequently, he
argued that negotiations should be more conciliatory. An impasse
ensued, Brant pulled back from the alliance, and therefore only a
handful of Iroquois took up arms with the aboriginal army as it
prepared to meet the Americans in battle in the summer of 1794. With
the withdrawal of Iroquois support, the British and the western tribes
had lost a considerable source of manpower. We should note, however,
that the American negotiations were a sham. After the 1791 defeat,
Congress would not pay for a third army to contest the Ohio Valley
without a parallel diplomatic effort, but President George Washington
only went through the motions of seeking a peaceful solution in order
to get funding for the military expedition because he was determined
^ Cruikshank, 1:377-382. Minutes of a Council, July 7-9, 1793.
^ The 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix codified a boundary between
white and native lands set in the 1763 Royal Proclamation more-or-less
along the Ohio River.
JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT Page No. 51
to resolve the crisis through force. Of course, neither Brant nor Simcoe
knew this.
At the end of June 1 794, the western tribes attacked the American
supply depot of Fort Recovery 175 kilometres southwest of Fort
Miamis. The garrison's defenders repelled the warriors with some loss.
This defeat by a smaller force, combined with serious internal tensions
among the tribes tliemselves, maimed the aboriginal confederacy and
left it gravely weakened when it subsequently mustered to oppose the
American army's northward advance. In August the confederacy,
supported by some Canadian militia, converged for the fmal decisive
clash at Fallen Timbers, a few kilometres from Fort Miamis.
Conspicuously absent were the regular troops from the new fort who
had been ordered to avoid an Anglo-American confrontation if at all
possible because British policy, while supportive of the native cause,
was to prevent tlie frontier war from escalating into an Anglo-American
conflict unless the United States initiated hostilities against the British.
The militiamen's presence at Fallen Timbers was "unauthorized" so
Simcoe could repudiate their participation if necessary.
The Americans marched into the native and Canadian ambush. At
the sound of the first shots, the garrison at Fort Miamis took up its
position behind the fort's defensive walls. Through the trees the
soldiers could hear the shooting intensify as the Americans first reeled,
then rallied, and finally drove their outnumbered opponents from the
field. Next, the Canadian militia retreated behind the walls of Fort
Miamis. The soldiers in the fort then watched the tribesmen pass
through the woods nearby as they escaped from the action. Joseph
Brant, who was not at Fallen Timbers, later accused the British of
slamming the fort's gates in the retreating tribesmen's faces once the
Americans won the battle. His accusation is not supported by
contemporary accounts of the battle, but it captures the sense of
betrayal felt by the native people towards the British whose support for
the aboriginal cause was far weaker than they had expected.
The American army, flushed with victory, quickly surrounded Fort
Miamis. Several tension-filled days followed in which the Americans
demanded the surrender of the post and the British refused. Then,
American troops moved alarmingly close to the fort and the British
loaded their cannon. But, moments before the defenders put portfire to
fuse, the Americans withdrew. A battle had been avoided, perhaps by
seconds. Since the British could not be intimidated into surrendering,
the American commander, Major-General Anthony Wayne, next
Page No. 52 JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT
wanted to storm Fort Miamis. However, his officers argued that an
attack might fail. Even if successful, an assault would cost too many
lives because the British were well entrenched and the Americans
lacked heavy artillery to breach the ramparts. Diplomatically, the
Americans had to avoid a disaster in order to maintain the advantages
won over the western tribes at Fallen Timbers. As his supplies ran low
and his soldiers' enlistments neared expiry, Wayne ended the blockade
of Fort Miamis, burned native crops and a neighbouring British trading
post, and withdrew south. But, before leaving. General Wayne walked
up to the edge of the moat surrounding Fort Miamis, swore a blue
streak at the British of such spectacular proportions that even the hard-
living and hard-drinking redcoats were shocked, and then, before
stomping away, did something very rude into the moat. (I presume
what he did was not one of those secret Masonic rituals you hear
about!)
No Anglo-American clash ensued on the Detroit frontier in the
following weeks. To the east, no insurrection occurred in Lower
Canada, and the Vermonters called off tlieir invasion after the Royal
Navy captured the ship carrying their weapons from France. (By the
way, the name of the Vermonters' ship was the Olive Branch.)
Meanwhile, British and American diplomats in London negotiated the
Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation (or Jay's Treaty) in 1794
which brought Anglo-American tensions to an end. Defeated and
without allies, the westem tribes negotiated the Treaty of Greenville
with the Americans in 1795 in which they surrendered significant
portions of their territory, representing much of today's Ohio and part
of hidiana along with small parcels of land in Illinois and Micliigan.
Thus the crisis of 1 793-1 794, in the early days of our province's history
and the early days of Freemasonry in Ontario, came to an end.
However, peace returned to the frontier for a only few years. Continued
American expansion into native territory degenerated into war in 1811
when the Americans launched a pre-emptive strike at Tippecanoe
against the westem tribes who were forming a new military alliance led
by the famous Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, and his prophet brother,
Tenskawatawa. A year later, the United States declared war on Great
Britain and invaded Canada.
For Simcoe and Brant the aboriginal defeat in 1794 was tragic.
Although both of them held back from actively supporting the westem
tribes, they had hoped the natives would win the third round after the
victories of 1790 and 1791. If the tribes had been successful, they may
JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT Page No. 53
have been able to force the United States to recognize an independent
homeland for the aboriginal peoples in what today is Michigan, Ohio,
Illinois, and Wisconsin. For Simcoe, a native state would have served
as a defensive buffer between Upper Canada and the United States on
the province's vulnerable western frontier. For Brant, it would have
secured a homeland for the aboriginal peoples where they could have
lived in peace beyond the control of land-grabbing and hostile whites.
Simcoe came out of the confrontation with a diminished respect
for Joseph Brant because he felt betrayed by the Mohawk war chief and
suspected Brant's ultimate motives and loyalties. Yet, Brant's policies
freed the Iroquois from culpability in the frontier war which helped
them immeasurably as they attempted to hold onto their New York
lands in the face of white settlement pressures. Furthermore, Brant
realized that British support for the tribes was restricted to the extent
it fulfilled British objectives, as had been demonstrated in the over-
generous boundary settlement with the Americans in 1783 and in the
limited support Simcoe 's men had provided in the 1794 campaign.
Given the limits of British backing for the tribes, Brant naturally
restricted his support for the British (and the western tribes) to the
degree that it served Iroquois interests.
What happened to the Vermonters' Masonic lodge in Montreal?
Unfortunately, I do not know. However, I hope someone in this room
might be sufficiently intrigued to do some research into the possible
subversive activities of the Vermont Freemasons. What happened to
our two trouble-making Masons after the resolution of the fi"ontier
crisis? John Graves Simcoe left Canada in 1796 and continued to
pursue his military career elsewhere, ultimately rising to the rank of
lieutenant-general. In 1806, the government appointed him governor-
general of India. Sadly, on his way there, he fell ill, returned to
England, and died. He is buried at the family chapel he had built at
Wolford which is maintained today as a historic site by the Province of
Ontario. Joseph Brant lived in relative prosperity in Upper Canada,
dividing his time between his fine Georgian mansion on Burlington
Beach and the Grand River community. In 1807 he passed from this
world into the next. You can visit his grave - restored in recent years
with Masonic help - beside his Mohawk Chapel in Brantford.
It is not possible in a short after-dinner presentation to explore the
complexities of the frontier crisis of two centuries ago in detail.
However, what I hope I have done is give you a sense of the drama
surrounding the frontier situation in the 1790s by exploring the main
Page No. 54 JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT
flash points through the experience of two particularly interesting
Freemasons. Thank you for your attention.
WANT TO READ MORE?
The best book on Joseph Brant is: Joseph Brant, 1 743-1 807: Man of
TVvo Worlds by Isabel Thompson Kelsay, pubhshed by Syracuse
University Press in 1984. A good biography of John Graves Simcoe is
William Renwick Riddell's, The Life of John Graves Simcoe, First
Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Upper Canada, 1 792-96,
published by McClelland and Stewart in 1926. Carl Benn's Historic
Fort York, 1793-1993, (Toronto: Natural Heritage, 1993) discusses the
birth of Toronto during the crisis of 1793-1794. An in-depth study of
the frontier war of the 1790s is Wiley Sword's, President Washington s
Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1 790-1 795, published
in Norman, Oklahoma by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1985.
Information on the Vermont invasion can be found in J. Kevin
Graffagnino, "Twenty Thousand Muskets!!! Ira Allen and the Olive
Branch Affair, 1796-1800," in the William and Maiy Quarterly, third
series, vol. 48, no. 3, July 1991.
Your local library could get any of these for you on inter-library
loan if it does not have its own copies, and most booksellers could get
all but the Riddell book and the Graffagnino article if you want to
purchase your own copies.
CARL BENN
Carl Benn was bom, raised, and educated in Toronto. He has worked
in the heritage field since 1969 and presently is Curator, Military and
Marine History for the Toronto Historical Board. He also teaches on a
part-time basis at the University of Toronto, and has published a large
number of historical and museological articles. In May 1993, his new
book, Historic Fort York, 1 793-1993, was released by Natural Heritage
Books. His next book, nearing completion, is a study of the Iroquois in
the War of 1812.
JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE AND JOSEPH BRANT Page No. 55
OUR DEPARTED BRETHREN
The following names of deceased members of The Heritage Lodge
No. 730, G.R.C., have come to our attention during the past year. In
several cases the exact date of passing was not known.
W.Bro. Norman Camp
London
St. John's Lodge No. 20 G.R.C.
Died January 29, 1992
V.W.Bro. Kenneth H. Clark
Toronto
Prince of Wales Lodge No. 630, G.R.C.
Died March 14, 1993
W.Bro. William Allan Dempsey
Belleville
Lake Lodge No. 215, G.R.C.
Died March 13, 1993
W.Bro. Richard James Dengate
London
St. John's Lodge No. 20, G.R.C.
Died February 27, 1993
Bro. Kenneth S. Giliis
Atwood
Elma Lodge No. 456, G.R.C.
Died in 1992
W.Bro. Nicholas C. Kerrigan
West Hill
Universe Lodge No. 705, G.R.C.
Died November 28, 1991
W.Bro. James A. Kilsby
CoUingwood
Manito Lodge No. 90, G.R.C.
Died August 12, 1991
Page No. 56 FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL
R.W.Bro. Richard Edward Arthur Lindsey
Willowdale
Shamrock Lodge No. 533, G.R.C.
Died December 23, 1992
V.W.Bro. Arthur Reginald Medhurst
Etobicoke
Long Branch Lodge No. 632, G.R.C.
Died December 15, 1991
Bro. Douglas R. Parkinson
Belleville
Eureka Lodge No. 283, G.R.C:
Died in 1993
Bro. Thomas Wilbert Piatt
Grand Valley
Prince Arthur Lodge No. 334, G.R.C.
Died in 1993
Bro. Max Alexander Raich
Woodstock
Blenheim Lodge No. 108, G.R.C.
Died March 25, 1992
V.W.Bro. J. Stewart Rowntree
Woodbridge
Blackwood Lodge No. 311, G.R.C.
Died July 10, 1992
R.W.Bro. Frank Albert Standring
London
Temple Lodge No. 597, G.R.C.
Died October 9, 1992
FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL Page No. 57
GRAND LODGE OFFICERS (1992-1993)
The Most Worshipful the Grand Master
M.W. Bro. Norman E. Byrne
166 John St. South
Hamilton Ontario, L8N 2C4
The Deputy Grand Master
R.W. Bro. C. Edwin Drew
5 Scotland Road,
Agincourt Ontario, MIS 1L5
The Grand Secretary
M.W. Bro. Robert E. Davies
P.O. Box 217
Hamilton Ontario, L8N 3C9
THE HERITAGE LODGE OFFICERS (1992-1993)
Worshipful Master W.Bro. Stephen H. Maizels
Immediate past Master R.W. Bro. Frank G. Dunn
Senior Warden W. Bro. David Fletcher
Junior Warden R.W. Bro. Kenneth L. Whiting
Chaplain R.W. Bro. Cerwyn Davies
Treasurer R.W. Bro. Duncan J. McFadgen
Secretary W Bro. Donald D. Thornton
Assistant Secretary V.W Bro. George F. Moore
Senior Deacon W. Bro. Thomas Crowley
Junior Deacon R.W. Bro. Larry J. Hostine
Director of Ceremonies R.W. Bro. Wilfred T. Greenhough
Inner Guard W Bro. George Napper
Senior Stewart R.W. Bro. E.(Ted) Burton
Junior Stewart W. Bro. Gordon L. Finbow
Organist R.W. Bro. Leonard R. Hertel
Historian R.W. Bro. Fred R. Branscombe
Tyler W. Bro. R Raymond Borland
Auditors R.W. Bro. Kenneth G. Bartlett
R.W. Bro. W. James Curtis
Page No. 58 OFFICERS, CHAIRMEN. ETC.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN
[Archivist & Curator R.W. Bro. Edmund V. Ralph
Editor W. Bro. John F. Sutherland
Masonic Information R.W. Bro. Robert S. Throop
Librarian R.W. Bro. Capt. John Storey
Graphics W Bro. Basil Liaskas
Finance and By-Laws W. Bro. Albert A. Barker
Membership W. Bro. Nelson King
Black Creek Masonc Heritage . V.W. Bro. Alan D. Hogg
Publications R.W. Bro. Balfour LeGresley
Liaskas Paintings R.W. Bro. Frank G. Dunn
Annual Banquet Bro. Larry Budd
PAST MASTERS
1977 & 1978 R.W. Bro. Jacob Pos
1979 R.W. Bro. Keith R.A. Flynn
1980 R.W. Bro. Donald G.S. Grinton
1981 M.W. Bro. Ronald E. Groshaw
1982 V.W Bro. George E. Zwicker
1983 R.W Bro. Balfour E. LeGresley
1984 M.W. Bro. David C. Bradley
1985 R.W Bro. C. Edwin Drew
1986 R.W Bro. Robert S. Throop
1987 W Bro. Albert A. Barker
1988 R.W. Bro. Edsel C. Steen
1989 R.W. Bro. Edmund V. Ralph
1990 V.W. Bro. Donald B. Kaufman
1991 R.W Bro. Wilfred T. Greenhough
1992 R.W. Bro. Frank G. Dunn
OFFICERS, CHAIRMEN, ETC. Page No. 59
^^^ m.
^natltutrb: &rpttmbtr21. 1977
(BcmflmiitfiJ: &t|rtrmbtr 23. 1978
^application far affiliation
To the "Worsfiipjui Master, "Wardens and 'Bretfiren of 'The 'Jkritagc Lodge 9{p.
730, of the Qrand Lodge of ^S & iASM. of Canada, in the Trovince of Ontario.
I, of
imprint name inJuU)
'Fostal Code
(complete, mailing address)
Telephone ( )
in the County of _
Occupation
being a
in the Trozdnce of Ontario
"Date of 'Birth
Mason, and desirous of Becoming a member of The
(fuU 'Masonic ran^
^Heritage Lodge 9{p. 730, do declare as foUozvs:
I am not in debt to any Lodge for dues or otherwise.
I was initiated
CDate)
(Passed and !l((iised in
Lodge 5Vp.
at
under the jurisdiction of the
Qrand Lodge of ^
am now / was Cast, a member of ^
(Dated at this
and am in good Masonic standing. I
Lodge 9{p.
_ day of 19
Signature in full ^
(^commended by: 1 Bro.
2 Bro.
(name)
(name)
The ^rita/je Lodfle Ojo. 730
The, Heriiofie Lodge Ojo. 730
Page No. 61
TO THE HERITAGE LODGE NO. 730, G.R.C.
CERTIFICATION OF MEMBERSHIP
I, , the secretary
of Lodge No. G.R.C.,
located in , Ontario, do hereby certify
that Bro. is a member in
good standing of this Lodge as of this date.
DATE SECRETARY
Page No. 62
THE HERITAGE LODGE NO. 730
A.K & A.M., G.R.C.
Instituted: September 21, 1977
Constituted: September 23, 197S
APPLICATION FOR CORRESPONDING SUBSCRIBER
To the Worshipful Master, Wardens and Brethren of The Heritage
Lodge No. 730, of the Grand Lodge ofA.F. & A.M. of Canada, in the
Province of Ontario.
Please accept this application for Corresponding Subscriber to
the Regular Proceedings of The Heritage Lodge No. 730. I enclose
herewith remittance in the amount of $15.00 Cdnfor the year ending
August 3 J St, J 99 .
I am currently a member in good standing of:
(Name ana Numoer or Loage, uorary or otner Masonic tfoay)
Located at ___^__^ ^,^_^ ^^___^^
(Uity/iown) JProviriceTSfafe) (Uounty)
Under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of: __,„___^,^_,.____^
(Name of Urand Lodge)
Dated at this day of 19
Signature in full and Masonic Rank:
Signature of Sponsor * ,
(Name and no. or Lodge)
* Sponsor may be Secretary or Worshipful Master of Applicants
Lodge, or a member of The Heritage Lodge. Please note the connection
adjacent to Sponsor s signature.
NOTE: Please print below in 'BLOCK LETTERS' the full name of
Corresponding Subscriber, and the complete mailing address.
(Name or Uorresponding HubscnOer)
(titreet Address)
(Uity/ lown) (Hrovince / urate) (Hosrai / Zip uode)
(uounrry)
Page No. 63
TVNews
OpenLibrary